Tickets and passes

Swiss transport is expensive at full fare and reasonable with the right pass. Which pass is right depends almost entirely on how much you will move, and the arithmetic is worth ten minutes before you book.

Prices change every year, so this page explains what each product does rather than quoting numbers that will be stale by next season. Current prices are on sbb.ch and swisstravelsystem.com.

The main options

Swiss Travel Pass

Unlimited travel on trains, buses and boats for a set number of consecutive days, plus free entry to around 500 museums and reductions of 25–50% on most mountain railways. A handful of mountain lifts are fully included.

Worth it if you are moving most days and visiting museums. Not worth it if you are basing yourself in one city and taking two day trips.

There is a Flex version giving the same number of days spread across a month, at a premium — which suits a trip with rest days in it.

Half Fare Card

Halves the price of nearly every journey in the country for a month or a year, including most mountain railways.

This is the card Swiss residents carry, and for visitors it is often the better deal: if your planned fares add up to more than roughly twice the card price, it wins. Combine it with day passes on the heavy days.

Saver Day Pass

A day of unlimited travel at a price that moves with demand and how far ahead you buy — cheapest weeks in advance, dearest on the day, and cheaper again if you hold a Half Fare Card.

Best for one or two big travel days inside an otherwise stationary trip. They are issued in limited numbers and the cheap ones go early.

Point-to-point tickets

Fine if you are staying put. Supersaver tickets on specific departures, booked in advance, can be dramatically cheaper than the standard fare — the catch is that they are valid only on that train.

Regional and city passes

• Zürich Card — city transport plus museum entry and discounts, for 24 or 72 hours. Worth it at two museums a day; otherwise a plain transport pass is cheaper.
• Geneva Transport Card — free, handed over at check-in by every hotel, hostel and campsite in the city. Ask for it. Geneva airport also has a machine in the baggage hall giving a free 80-minute ticket into town, which almost nobody finds unaided.
• Regional passes — Berner Oberland, Jungfrau, Tell-Pass and others, covering one area’s trains, buses, boats and lifts. In the mountains these usually beat a national pass, because they cover the expensive parts properly rather than discounting them.
• Guest cards — many resorts give arriving guests a card covering local transport, funded by the tourist tax you are paying anyway. Ask at check-in; it is rarely offered unprompted.

How to decide

1. Write down the journeys you actually intend to make.
2. Price them at full fare on sbb.ch.
3. Compare three totals: Half Fare Card plus those fares halved; a Swiss Travel Pass; a regional pass for wherever you are spending most time.
4. Add the mountain lifts separately. This is where the options differ most, and where a national pass often only gives a discount.

The answer is frequently the Half Fare Card plus a couple of Saver Day Passes, and it is almost never the most expensive product on the page.

Children and young people

Children under six travel free. Six to sixteen travel free with a Junior Card when accompanied by a parent — it costs very little and is the best value in Swiss transport. Young adults get substantial reductions on most products.

Buying

Everything is sold in SBB Mobile and at station machines, which take cards and offer several languages. Visitor passes can be bought online before arrival, and the Swiss Travel Pass is sold only to people living outside Switzerland.